Collaborative Process Learning on the Shop-Floor from the Perspectives of Lean Management

Today the implementation of lean management principles is spreading from the pure manufacturing facilities into additional supporting areas, without which also manufacturing system cannot function well. One such area is the knowledge management, important for acquiring and disseminating knowledge across manufacturing facility so that also the manufacturing system could be effectively run. On the knowledge management discipline many articles and books have been published. However, the focus of this paper is to provide some additional insight into this discipline from the viewpoint of lean management, and thus to broaden the understanding of the knowledge management concept. The main ideas about knowledge management taken from lean management perspective relate to the ways of how knowledge can be acquired and shared through collaborative process learning, the relationship between knowledge and learning, how we can define knowledge worker in contemporary offices, and finally how we can implement the acquired knowledge in the processes and workplaces. The paper introduces a case study indicating that lean initiative supported by a company´s management combined with deep trust and respect for the human aspect has the ability to motivate knowledge sharing and willingness to deploy collaborative learning at all organizational levels. The article tackles the issue of trust in employees and their motivation and engagement as one of the factors predetermining success of collaborative process learning.